


Order of the [REDACTED]

by cordsycords



Series: lies you tell your friends to prevent them from figuring out your depressing d&d backstory [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: An Attempt at Worldbuilding Has Been Made, And the Body Horror that Goes With It, Blood Hunter Rituals, Campaign 02 (Critical Role), Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Speculation is Fun, Whump, because that's fun, lycanthropy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 10:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13587984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordsycords/pseuds/cordsycords
Summary: Blood Hunter rituals are centuries old and involve blood magic, the imbibing of toxic substances, and an unusual amount of nudity.Orhow Mollymauk joined the Order of the....Well we don't know what his subclass yet, so I'm just going to write a chapter for each one.[Updating once a day until Thursday]





	1. Ghostslayer

**Author's Note:**

> I think it's apt to provide some context to this little one-shot series thing before you read it. So to get what I'm trying to do here, you must know a few things that I'm assuming/headcanoning to make these four chapters make sense:
> 
>   1. Mollymauk has amnesia, and can't remember anything before when he joined the circus two years ago.
>   2. Before he was in the circus, he was a Blood Hunter, and he belonged to an order. He's forgotten pretty much everything to do with it.
>   3. His level progression will be tied to _remembering_ how do Blood Hunter stuff, rather than _learning_ how to do it, if you get my drift
> 

> 
> Anyways, there are four different subclasses of Blood Hunter for Molly to choose from, and we won't absolutely know which one until Thursday. I plan to post a chapter a day, one for each subclass.

  


“Are you the devil?” One of the bedridden asks, glazed eyes following the form of a purple tiefling as he walks between the beds of the other invalids. Mollymauk chuckles under his breath. He is asked the same question every day, at the same time, by the same person. He does not know the man’s name, was not even advised to learn it, so he calls him Sir Forget-Me-Not, if only in his head, as he sits by the man’s bedside and administers his daily medication.

  


“You’ve come to take me away, I know it demon!” Sir Forget-Me-Not shouts as Mollymauk grinds a bundle of herbs and other more illicit substances together, creating a euphoric drug that keeps most of the Order’s patients happy and pain-free to the end of their days. Forget-Me-Not has a strange resistance to the medicine, he’s the only one who talks out of the bunch and he can be quite chatty when he wants to be.

  


“Yes sir, I’ve come to take away your soul. Now open your mouth and feel no pain,” Molly says, holding up a spoon of the drug to the man’s face. His memory may be gone, but he still takes his medicine without hesitation. Within a couple minutes, he’s fallen asleep, and Molly is left to the rest of his work. He checks over the other patients, marking down their vitals and general health into his book, and writing down the cruel calculations that estimate how many days of life they have left. He does this eight time, for each bed that’s filled in the Sanctuary of the Dying.

  


It’s an unprecedented number, he’s never seen this many dying in the Order since he had arrived a few years ago. But the nearby village had been infected by a plague, and those that were still alive were sent to the Order to die, as was the contract that the Order had made. It was a symbiotic relationship if a bit of a morbid one: the Order protected the village, and the village sent them their dead.

  


When he’s done he takes his book and leaves the room, locking the door behind him. The antechamber to the Sanctuary serves as a room where he can disrobe and bathe. He rids himself of the white robes he’s required to wear when he does his work and puts them into a basin of steaming water to wash. They smell like the dead and sick; an acrid stench of vomit, herbs, and shit that he’s happy to get rid of. 

  


He sinks into his own basin of water, hissing at the heat despite his natural resistance to it. The only perk of his duties is that he’s required to bathe every day now, instead of every other week. He scrubs at his skin with a brush and soap until his scars begin to redden under the harsh treatment. The soap is nothing fancy but it gets the job done. Afterwards, he relaxes into the water, breathing in the steam and the quiet scent of chamomile as he lets himself soak in peace. He allows himself three minutes before he lifts himself from the wash basin, dons his regular clothes and swords, grabs his book, and leaves.

  


The Order of the Ghostslayer is the oldest of the four Blood Hunter guilds, the texts in the library say that it was the first, and eventually it will be the last. Stronghold Toten was built high into the mountains centuries ago and is slowly falling apart like the Order it was built for. Many of its hallways and rooms are crumbling, and can hardly be considered safe to live in. But if there’s anything he’s learned about the Ghostslayers is that they are slaves to their tradition, and if the prophecies are true they will end up outliving the home that was built for them.

  


He heads past the great hall, looking out the open doors to see his younger peers practicing out in the yard. He doesn’t stay to watch them, hurrying to the spiraling staircase on the opposite side of the hall. It’s a long climb to the top of the tower, and when he finally reaches the top landing he takes a second to fully catch his breath before entering the Grandmaster’s office.

  


Grandmaster Muninn is as old as the Stronghold itself and is just as decrepit as well. He sits in his observatory and stares at the sky from his wheelchair, spouting philosophy about the ethereal realms beyond death and other nonsensical subjects. He’s barely responsible for any of the everyday goings-on of the Order, mostly delegating everything to his underlings rather than deal with anything directly. 

  


“Initiate Mollymauk,” Muninn drones in greeting from his desk, nose buried in a book as he writes something done with a quivering hand, “What have you learned today?”

  


Molly opens his book to the most recent page, and recites his notes from the day, “First patient: a half-elven woman in her second century who contracted the recent plague. Her fever has continued, but she hasn’t yet reached the final stage of the disease. Estimated time until death is two weeks,” he continues through each one of the patients he oversees, relaying their symptoms and vitals.

  


“Eighth patient: a human man who was sent to the Sanctuary by his family, his memory is failing him. He has not contracted the plague from his fellow patients, and is merely dying to old age. Estimated time until death is within the next day or so.”

  


He looks up from his book to Grandmaster Muninn, who stopped his writing at some point during Molly’s address. He steeples his hands in front of his face, “You will remove patient eight from the Sanctuary and assist in his passing.”

  


“Yes, Grandmaster,” Mollymauk bows his head, and turns to leave.

  


“Initiate?” Muninn asks as Molly opens the door.

  


“Yes, sir?”

  


“Prepare to be brought into the Order by the end of the week.”

  


“Of course, sir.”

  


 

  


Sir Forget-Me-Not is brought to a room with a single bed, an alchemist’s table, and a hearth. As the sun begins to set, Molly brews a pot of tea on the roaring fire. It is unlikely he will be allowed to sleep as he witnesses the passing, so anything that will help him stay awake is useful. 

  


“Is it my time, demon?” Sir Forget-Me-Not rambles from the bed, “Have you come to steal my soul?”

  


Molly sighs as he crushes the herbs, creating a drug that will put him to sleep, “Your soul is going where it will go, my friend. I have no bearing on its destination.”

  


“Lies! Lies and mistruths! Foul demon who lies to his victims-” Molly shuts him up by forcing of spoonful of medicine into his mouth.

  


“You will be embraced by the arms of the Gods. I am here to witness your final passing.” He says. Sir Forget-Me-Not falls silent. Molly goes to kneel by the hearth, spooning some tea into a mug before going to kneel by the bed.

  


He doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to be doing here. He was instructed by his elders to watch, and meditate, and contemplate the passing. He doesn’t understand how this will help him in the ritual. He doesn’t even know what the ritual _is_. If it’s anything like the original consumption of the Hunter’s Bane, there’s a very likely chance that he’ll be dead by the end of the week.

  


Sir Forget-Me-Not groans in his sleep and his hand twitches at his side. Molly reaches up to take it. It’s clammy and cold and extremely uncomfortable to hold, but Forget-Me-Not’s hand encloses around Molly’s and he knows he’ll feel guilty if he pulls away.

  


He closes his eyes, listening to the sound of two different breathes filling the room. He syncs his own up to Sir Forget-Me-Not, shallow and wheezing it begins to slow down as the moon rises in the night sky. He moves two fingers to feel Forget-Me-Not’s pulse at the wrist and then compares it to his own. Slow and weak versus strong and a bit too fast. It’s a depressing contrast.

  


It’s easy to fall into a meditative state from there, to lose his thoughts from his conscious and let them roam free. It isn’t long until all he’s focused on is the sound of their combined breath, and the two separate heartbeats brushing against the tips of two sets of fingers. The fire dies down and his tea grows cold, but he feels no passage of time.

  


He and the dying breathe in tandem until there is one last inhale of breath with no matching exhale. The heartbeat stops. It catches him off guard, so deep in his meditative state that he forgets to breathe as well. He collapses onto his back as he clasps at his throat. His basic instincts finally kick him as he gasps and heaves on the ground, terrified of his apparent reaction to the now-dead man’s passing.

  


It takes him another second to remember that he’s sharing a room with a dead person. He scrambles to his feet to hover over the bed. Sir Forget-Me-Not’s eyes are closed. The room is beginning to smell. Mollymauk pulls the white sheet over his head. He doesn’t know what else to do for him.

  


He leaves. Two of his elders are waiting on the other side of the door and rush in when he exits. His feet automatically carry him outside where the noonday sun is beating down on the courtyard outside the great hall doors. He interrupts the younglings working through their drills as he collapses in the centre of the square, soaking up the heat of the sun and sound of the birds and the feeling of mountain wind caressing his cheek.

  


He’s alive, he reminds himself.

  


Not for long, probably.

  


But that doesn’t really matter.

  


 

  


As always, anything involving old Blood Hunter rituals is uncomfortable, cold, and often requires a certain level of nudity. While it has been several years since he was stretched out on the rack, tied down, and forced to drink the Hunter’s Bane as he screamed his throat raw from the pain, it still hasn’t been long enough to forget the process completely. It certainly hasn’t been long enough to want to repeat it.

  


Those who have already gone through it tell him not to worry. They tell him to meditate, as they are always wont to do, but he finds himself unable to sit still for long. The days leading up to whatever ritual he is to be forced through have involved him aimlessly wandering around the Stronghold, avoiding certain rooms to the best of his ability.

  


It does nothing to put his mind at ease.

  


Due to symbolic reasons, the ritual starts at sundown. He is brought into a chamber he’s never been allowed in before. There are no windows, but the room seems to be lit with natural light. He looks up towards the ceiling to see a series of lenses and mirrors, all positioned correctly for light from a hole at the top of the tower to filter through, no matter the angle the sun stands in the sky.

  


His peers wait for him, dressed in their armour and weapons. He feels their touches as he passes by, whispers of prayer muttered under their breath as he’s directed to the marble slab in the centre of the chamber. It’s cold against the skin of his back as he lies down upon it, carefully moving his tail so he doesn’t lie on it awkwardly. He almost moves his hand to cover his face when his gaze shifts towards the ceiling, the filtered-in light nearly blinding him. A gentle hand keeps him still.

  


He looks into the light as they work around him, gathering the decoctions and instruments that will be introducing them into his bloodstream. He’s glad he’s never had an aversion to needles, considering how many times he’s been pricked by one. Something is inserted into the inside of his elbow, and he braces himself for inevitable pain to follow but instead all he feels in numbness. It spreads like molasses from that point, first down into his fingers then continuing its sticky trail up the arm to the rest of his body.

  


He doesn’t struggle. Something in his mind tells him not to. It tells him to embrace it with open arms.

  


He floats into the light.

  


 

  


When he wakes up, the sun is rising.

  



	2. Lycan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting into squicky territory here folks. Just a little warning for Lycanthropy and the body-horror that goes with it. I try not to get too gory but.... you know.

The full moon rises over the trees of the Pearlbow Wilderness, casting his kneeling form in an ethereal glow. He shivers in the northern chill, his breathe clouding in front of his face as frost bites at his naked skin. His legs have already gone numb from his position, the soft dirt underneath them doing nothing to abade his discomfort.

 

He can hear them, prowling in the underbrush just beyond the treeline. It’s far enough that he can only see the faint outline of their beastial form, but one of them moves a certain way and he suddenly sees the eyes of a giant cat gleam in the moonlight. His breath hitches. A twig snaps.

 

He is prey, graciously offering himself to the slaughter.

 

 

 

The Order of the Lycanthrope is difficult to track down, if only because there is no official place where they gather. Texts from the Stronghold say that the Lycans left to create their own order only a few decades earlier, but the information stops there. After leaving, he searches through multiple branches of the Cobalt Reserve to find even less than that. It is very easy to realise that the Lycan’s keep to themselves, rarely communicating with the Ghosts or the Mutants but for maybe the occasional trade of Hunter’s Bane to increase their ranks.

 

He leaves the Stronghold before ever taking the Oath of the Ghostslayer. He finds no comfort in their compliance to old rituals and laws set by the original Blood Hunters centuries ago. Under their guidance the guild is on the edge of extinction, and yet the elders continue to be stubborn in their ways.

 

That’s the problem with death. It’s stagnant.

 

Within the first couple of months on his own, he takes a contract in Talonstadt at the base of the Ashkeeper Peaks. Being on the border of Xorhas and the Empire, contracts there are numerous and lucrative. It’s good work for someone of his particular talents.

 

It’s there when he meets his first Lycan. A misunderstanding involving badly written paperwork and an overworked lawmaker leads to him being paired with another of his peers for a contract, splitting the reward fifty-fifty. He ends up tracking a rock troll into the mountains alongside a gruff halfling woman named Kelpie.

 

She’s older him, and by the looks of her scars she’s also been doing this for much longer. Every bit of skin showing is criss-crossed with little white lines, barely visible against her pale skin but still noticeable to anyone who’s looking. Walking behind her, he can see tiny little scars extend up the back of her neck to just passed her hairline, where they disappear into the tight braid of her blonde hair.

 

“What kinda name’s Mollymauk?” She asks, no sense of tact whatsoever. That’s the thing with Blood Hunters, especially the older ones, they spend so much time by themselves that they forget their manners.

 

“The one my mother gave me,” he replies, eyes on the ground as he searches for tracks.

 

“Still weird.”

 

“We lived by the sea. She liked the songs the sailors used to sing as they came in at the docks.”

 

“And what kinda monster was the one that killed her?”

 

“Bugbear.”

 

“Fuckers.”

 

She doesn’t talk about herself for the three days they’re together, that first conversation being the longest one they ever have.

 

 

 

The tiger jumps from the trees with a roar, it’s white pelt almost effervescent under the moonlight. He has only a second to gasp before it collides with his body, knocking him back to the ground, his breath forced out of his lungs as its paws press down his chest. One of his ribs crack from the weight as he gasps. His hands immediately go to the weight, trying to pry the paws off of him. The tiger doesn’t budge, it’s gigantic size overpowering whatever meager strength he has.

 

“Do you accept the Oath?” A clear voice calls out, echoing through the trees. Various sounds of growling and hissing answer the call. The tiger presses further down into his chest.

 

He struggles to speak, “Yes,” he says with a croaking breath.

 

“Do you accept the curse of Lycanthropy to fight the evil’s of this world, and promise not to infect another without the Order’s sanction?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Do you swear that you will return to the Order, if you ever bare the shame of being cured, so that the curse may be inflicted upon you again?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Howls interrupt the quiet forest air as the tiger’s claws begin to sink into his chest.

 

 

 

They find the rock troll in a cave carved into the side of a steep cliff. The smell of rotting human carcasses and boiling blood greet them as they enter, heightened senses reeling at the overpowering scent. They’re able to surprise it, but rock trolls are a bitch to kill and within a minute Molly finds himself being flung across the cavern, crashing through a group of stalagmites. He groans as his vision blurs, weakly pushing himself up before collapsing to the ground once more.

 

He watches as Kelpie transforms right in front of him, half convinced that he’s hallucinating from the blow to his head. Her back haunches over, cruelly bending her spine into a distorted shape. Tufts of brown hair grow from he can see her skin, and when she turns the right way he swears that he can see tusks pointing out of her mouth, blood drooling around them.

 

She drops her battle-axe to the ground and charges at the troll full-speed, flames erupting from her hands as she sinks her lengthened fingernails into her palms, activating the magic of the Crimson Rite.

 

The rock troll does not go down quietly.

 

Afterwards she carves a trophy from its body, and pushes it into his arms.

 

“You’re a Lycan,” he says as she tries to wipe the blood off her hands.

 

She doesn’t meet his eyes, “So you’ve seen.” Her beast-like features are slowly beginning to disappear, but her desperate attempts to hide them are going about as well as you’d think.

 

“Where are they? How do I get in?” He asks, scrambling over the questions he has.

 

She looks him over, taking in the blood slowly dripping down his chest, the fact that he’s favouring his left leg over his right, all combined with his over-eager disposition, “Are you sure you want to know? It’s a hard life, boy.”

 

“Do I look like I give a shit?”

 

She chuckles, “Caiwren will get a kick out of you, if she doesn’t kill you first.” She picks her battle-axe up from the ground, and walks off with a huff, “Take the reward, boy, you’ll need it to get to the Pearlbow.”

 

 

 

The tiger sinks her teeth into his shoulder, wrenching a hoarse scream from his throat. She then slowly backs away, stepping off his prone body to lie down a few feet away, her bloody face resting on matching paws. The others emerge from the treeline to join her; wolves, boars, tigers, and bears all there to see the proceedings.

 

He’s still on the ground, moaning through the pain. The wound feels like acid, burning through his skin. His arm is twitching uncontrollably, seizing as whatever was in the weretiger’s bite slowly makes its way through his bloodstream.

 

He didn’t expect how long it would take. He expected a violent turn, something straight from a two-copper horror novel. Instead it’s like a leaf slowly burning, a small ember that begins at the edges and then makes its way to the middle, turning everything to ash. The pain that the burn leaves behind is all-consuming to the point that it almost numbs him from any other feeling. He can’t move his fingers, or lift his arm, or even blink his eye.

 

He thinks he can feel a tear trail down his cheek, leaving a path of cold sadness in its wake.

 

 

 

The Pearldew Wilderness is as advertised: vast, neverending, wilderness. He spends a couple weeks wandering the forest, living off little food and even less rest. The cold nips at him each night as he curls into himself, shivering up in the branches of trees. By the beginning of the third week he’s close to giving up.

 

It’s the pack that finds him, lead by a half-elf named Caiwren. In his starved state, he thinks she might be an angel. Her bright white hair sparkles under the light of the sun, her eyes as blue as any sea or sky. But upon closer look, she is just as torn up as him. A scar stretches from the corner of her lip ot the opposite eye, what looks to the remnants of an attack that tore off the tip of her nose.

 

“Greetings, brother.”

 

“You can’t guess how-”

 

She raises a hand to stop him, and motions to one of her followers, “Give him enough for three days, that should be enough to get back to somewhere more… civilised.”

 

Someone throws a sack of dried meats and herbs to his feet. He scrambles to pick it up. When he looks back, they’ve disappeared into the woods.

 

 

 

After what feels like an eternity of pain-induced paralysis the burning sensation slowly begins to abate, if only to bring on something far worse. It’s as though every bone in his body breaks at once, then reforms into a new shape then breaks once more. They grind against each other, grotesquely transforming him into something new. He curls into himself as his spine deforms, forcing his hands into fists. Claws that weren’t there before pierce through his skin.

 

Suddenly a guttural roar is ripped from his throat, harsher than any Infernal curse. He tries to plead for mercy, to ask for help, but his vocal chords refuse him. His mouth feels all wrong, smaller than normal as his new teeth tear through his gums, curving into deadly canines. His cries turn into whimpers.

 

The others watch on.

 

 

 

He follows the pack for another week. They do not give him more food after their initial gift, so he settles on eating whatever scraps they leave behind. They move fast, so he stops sleeping as well. He is able to stay close enough that he is sure they know he’s following, and yet they pay him no attention.

 

So he watches, and observes, and catalogues everything he can learn about them. Caiwren is obviously the leader or perhaps the alpha is a more apt description of her role. The others follow her without question. She might even be the one who started the Order in the first place, seeing as they separated from the Stronghold no more than fifty years ago.

 

The pack seems to be going in a specific direction, rather than wandering around the Wilderness looking for monsters to kill. On the day before the full moon, they pass through a clearing. He climbs into the branches of a nearby tree and watches on as they each grab a vial from their packs. They raise it above their heads before drinking the contents, and within the next few minutes they’ve moved on.

 

He races down to where they stood. One vial remains in the ground, its contents still within.

 

He stores his belongings, along with his clothes, up in the tree before kneeling down in the centre of the clearing. He then uncorks the contents and drains the vial.

 

The sun sets beneath the treeline, casting his body in shadow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAH, I'm.... 18 minutes late. Oh well.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudoes are always welcome!
> 
> Tomorrow: The Order of the Lycanthrope
> 
> See you then!


End file.
